Impulses
by pokemon fan 98
Summary: In which Simmons and Fitz find an alien device that seems oddly human, but can't figure it out. It has a strange effect on them, making the logical part of their brain… not be so logical. Impulses take over, including anger and frustration. And passion. Yeah, definitely passion. Idea by awesomeness-in-white.


**A/N: So this idea was given to me by awesomeness-in-white. It was given as a prompt for a drabble series I'm writing for Fitz-Simmons, Partners for Life, but I decided to make it a oneshot instead. If you like this story, check out my other Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fanfics! I have several, and my drabble series is still going! Read and review/favorite please! Enjoy!**

"Jemma, come look at this." Fitz said.

He blew up the image on the projector and zoomed into the text. "It says weird things keep happening to people who visit this house in New York City. Things that they're having trouble explaining."

"What sort of things?" she asked.

He looked at the text on the screen. "It says that of the three times it has occurred, all the affected people have demonstrated primal behaviors. It seems to wear off after a few hours, but there's no explanation for it yet."

"If it's in New York, could it be something alien?"

"That's what I'm wondering. Or maybe people are just being crazy. They tend to do that sometimes."

She smiled. "It might be worth looking into, just in case. We don't have any big case right now, so I'm sure Coulson wouldn't mind. Especially if just the two of us went."

"You know," he said, "we might not even have to convince him. We could just ask for a day off and check it out."

She looked unsure, but he saw her step closer and read the news report he had found. Her expression became more interested as she read, and by the time she finished she had that look on her face that he loved; she was openly curious, and eager to look into the problem. He could tell by the way her eyes shone.

"Alright." She said. "But if it is something alien, we have to tell Coulson."

"That's fine." He said. He smiled. "Let's go ask for that day off."

* * *

The next day Fitz and Simmons were dropped off in New York City, in the morning.

"What are you guys doing anyway?" Coulson asked as they prepared to get off the Bus.

"We just thought we'd look into something." Simmons said truthfully.

Fitz grinned. "We might see a show if we have extra time."

Coulson smiled. "Well, have fun. And check in around midday, alright?"

"No problem sir!" Simmons said.

"Great. We'll meet back here at four o'clock."

They agreed to do so, and Fitz and Simmons made their way off of the Bus. The house the affected people had been visiting wasn't far from where they'd been dropped off. They walked the two blocks and found that the site was an old museum of sorts. The owners allowed people to come and go, but it wasn't recognized as a museum. There were also few things to see.

They entered and saw that no one else was there, which made them smile to each other. Perfect.

Fitz reached into his bag and pulled out the two D.W.A.R.F. drones he'd hidden in there, and their controller. "Let's see what we have here, shall we?" he said to himself as he set them to scan the room.

The drones began scanning the materials in the room, and Fitz looked at Simmons. "It'll be a few minutes before we have any results. Want to look around?"

"We wouldn't be scientists if we didn't investigate." She said with a smile. They started looking on the side the drones weren't on. The artifacts were pretty typical; a fancy goblet, a nice portrait, some gold and silver handed down from generations. There was a beautiful wooden table near the back, with a mirror near one edge that was turned over so its back was facing up.

"Look at this." Simmons said when she saw it.

"Don't touch anything." Fitz warned. "Just point, or put on gloves."

She pointed to the handheld mirror. "I wonder why it's turned over like that."

"Maybe the back is prettier than the front." He said.

She frowned a bit. "But a mirror like that is meant to be looked into."

"Aren't all mirrors?" he asked.

"Oh, be quiet." She said, waving away his comment. "Maybe it's turned over for a reason, that's all I'm saying."

Fitz looked at it for a moment. "Let's find out." He reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of gloves, handing them to Simmons.

She deftly slipped one on and reached for the mirror, pausing just before she touched it. The drones were just reaching them, and she let them go by her before she continued. They didn't search the table, so it couldn't be anything alien. She grabbed the mirror by its handle and picked it up, turning it so she looked into the glass part. "It's broken." She said.

There was a small piece from the outer edge missing, left on the table when she picked it up. But it separated when she touched it; she knew it as she inspected it that it was true. "Fitz, I broke it!" Her other hand grasped it in worry as she analyzed it, and she turned it towards him so he could see.

"I'm sure it can be fixed, let me see." He held out his hand calmly.

She held the mirror out to him and he grabbed it by the larger part. In the instant they both held the mirror it glowed with a harsh light, a complex and intricate design visible on the interior of the glass. The light pulsed and went towards the hands that gripped the mirror, and then it faded to nothing, all in the course of an instant.

The hands tightened on the mirror, the eyes staring at each other as the minds realized something. But it was too late. They had found their artifact. And it had affected them.

"What do we do now?" Simmons asked. "We found it."

"I don't-." Fitz couldn't complete the thought. He'd had an idea, but now it was gone. He just stared at her.

The drones came back and started scanning the table, evidently having planned it as the last spot to scan. They started on opposite ends of the table, and one scanned the mirror the scientists still held between them. Suddenly it started flashing a red light and emitting a small beep.

Fitz shook his head and looked at the drone. "Why are you doing that?"

"Can't you make it stop?" Simmons said.

Fitz let go of the mirror and grabbed the little drone, pushing a button that turned off its power. The other drone flew back to him and he turned that one off too, and put them both in his bag. "Little buggers are going crazy." He said. "We'll have to give them a check-up later."

"What were they supposed to do again?"

He narrowed his eyes. "I'm not sure. I can't even remember how they work."

"Let's look at more of this stuff." Simmons suggested. She realized she was still holding the mirror and brought it up to face-level, looking into it. She felt strangely drawn to it. Then she placed it back on the table and walked over to inspect a painting.

If the scientists did notice anything odd, they did nothing about it. They walked around the room slowly, inspecting everything. After some time Fitz groaned.

"Nothing in this place works!" he cried. He grabbed the displayed goblet and brought it to his lips, tilting it back to drink. A second later he threw it away. "No water."

Simmons kept finding herself returning to the mirror. "We don't need this place for supplies."

"Then where do we find them?" he asked, annoyed.

"I don't know! Why do I have to figure it out?"

"When I don't know something, you do!"

"I'm not that perfect!" she yelled.

He took a deep breath and turned away. "Never mind."

She noticed that his jaw was clenched as he struggled to maintain his anger. It added something to his physical appeal, something stronger. She looked into the mirror. "How does this work?" she asked.

He looked over and raised an eyebrow, still full of attitude. "You look into it."

She fought back a wave of annoyance and smiled tightly. "Thank you, Fitz. I meant, why did it light up before?"

"Weren't we looking for something alien?" he said.

"But it's a mirror!"

"Don't get mad at me for trying to help!"

Simmons sat down on the floor, the mirror in hand. Talking wasn't getting them anywhere. She looked over to Fitz and saw him standing, still with his back to her. He still seemed angry.

As if he felt her eyes on him, he turned around and looked at her. He was a bit flushed, and his hair was stuck up where he had pushed his hands through it. But his blue eyes were constant. She felt her attraction for him grow exponentially, and even as she questioned the ferocity of the change, her brain shut off the questioning part. So she just looked at him and took him in. He took slow steps towards her and she noticed the sureness of his steps, the confident way he held himself.

And it made her long for him.

She felt something stirring inside her, a desire she hadn't ever felt before. She didn't just want to see him. She wanted him, a burning desire to be close to him and touch him, to have him hold her in those strong arms. She stood up and quickly walked the few steps between them, crashing into him with a force she never really showed. He was more confident than she had ever seen him, and held her against him tightly as their lips crashed against each other.

She realized she was groaning softly. It sent a piercing shock through her, but her concern was lost in the blur of other, stronger emotions as she kissed him. He ran his fingers through her hair and she reached for his shirt, unbuttoning the first hole. He smiled against her mouth at that, and they moved against the wall.

She was breathless, but she didn't stop. It felt too good.

"What are you doing?"

Fitz looked away for a second and then kissed her again. Then she saw a pair of hands come between them, and she was shoved away from him. "Get a room!" the man said. "This is a family friendly museum!"

Fitz shoved him back. "There was no one else here." He said.

The man stepped back to recover his balance. "It's people like you that ruin these places." He said.

Fitz lunged at him and swung a fist. The man was sent stumbling back and stepped out of the museum, smiling slightly. "Now I can call the cops."

Simmons ran forward and pushed him further away and the man fled; cell phone in hand.

Simmons could see that Fitz wanted to hit the man again. She sort of did too. Instead she looked at him and was even more stimulated, and they once again crashed against each other.

She ran her fingers through his hair and then traced down his body, to his chest. Then she started feverishly undoing the buttons on his shirt. Her fingers were clumsy and slow because she was focused on kissing, but a few minutes later she got the last button undone and started pulling the shirt off of him. She let it drop to the floor and ran her hands along his arms. He was still wearing a sleeveless white undershirt.

His hands traced the exposed skin along her abdomen as her shirt lifted with her arms. He kissed her shoulder before moving back to her mouth.

But again they were interrupted by hands forcing them apart. This time the man who did it wore a police uniform, and had another man behind him, ready to help.

"Damn." He said. "We've really gotta close this place. This is the fourth time this week!"

"I'll call the hospital, tell them we have two more." The other said.

"Alright, get you shirt back on." The first one said to Fitz.

"Why do you keep separating us?!" he yelled. He swung at the officer. The man quickly pinned Fitz's arms behind his back and placed handcuffs on him.

"You're not yourself!" he said. "We're gonna get you help. You just have to let us."

"We don't need help!" Simmons cried. "We're perfectly fine!"

"I believe you." He said, quieting his voice in an attempt to soothe the two scientists. "I just want to take you someplace else, so you don't get into trouble. Okay? I'm not gonna separate you."

The second officer came back in and tried to lead Simmons out the door, but she struggled against him. "Leave me be!" she said. She fought him to the door and then managed to break free, and ran to the back of the room. She grabbed the mirror and looked into it. If she was leaving and couldn't keep kissing Fitz, she wanted the mirror. It intrigued her, how it reflected her image so perfectly. She felt a connection to it.

The officer grabbed her and forced her out of the museum and into the police car, where Fitz was already seated. Before he closed the door he handcuffed Simmons and buckled her in, and then the officers started driving the car.

The hospital wasn't far away, and the officers walked them in and handed them over to hospital workers. Whenever they tried to separate Fitz and Simmons the two started trying to fight to get back to each other, so they were kept together until they were placed in a private room. A doctor came in and checked them over.

"Both have higher pulses than normal, and seem agitated. Give them light sedatives and keep them away from each other." He said to two nurses.

Simmons looked at Fitz and sighed as the sedative started taking affect. Why couldn't the people just leave them alone? She struggled a bit, but soon felt too tired to fight much.

Time passed, infuriatingly slowly at first, and then a familiar face walked into the room.

"Coulson." Fitz said.

"What the hell did you two do?" he asked. He didn't seem angry; just exasperated.

Simmons realized that she felt calmer, and not because of a sedative. She felt normal again. She definitely didn't feel as… passionate. She glanced at Fitz and blushed as she thought of what they had done.

She pointed to the mirror on the table next to her. "I'm fairly certain that caused it."

"Can we go back to the Bus, sir?" Fitz asked. "I really don't want to be here anymore."

Coulson smiled, softening. He must have known that Fitz-Simmons wouldn't get into trouble like this if they could help it. It sort of just happened. "Let's go. You're sure you both feel alright?"

"Never better." Fitz said.

"Perfectly fine." Simmons said.

Coulson walked behind them as they went to check out and smiled. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but he was being sent the security tape now, so he would know soon enough. And then he would destroy the tape, of course.

* * *

_Later that night…_

"I can't believe you guys made out." Skye said.

"Please stop talking about it." Simmons said.

Skye raised an eyebrow. "Are you kidding me? I'm gonna use this as long as I can." She looked around to make sure they were alone. "So how was it?"

"Skye!" Simmons smiled the smallest bit, relenting. "It was sort of wonderful. But it wasn't us! It was all because of the mirror."

"Speaking of the mirror," Coulson said as he walked in, "I found out what it is, and what it did. And don't worry." He said with a wink to Simmons. "I won't tell Fitz what you said."

Fitz chose that moment to walk in. Thankfully, he didn't seem to have heard anything that was said; he looked shocked to see all of them together in the lab. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I'm glad you're here. I contacted some friendly Asgardians and asked if they knew anything about this mirror. Unfortunately they did." Coulson said.

Fitz sat down next to Simmons. "What did they say?"

"Apparently the mirror was designed to temporarily send people into a more primal state. If it's held by two people at the same time it's activated, and numbs the logical part of the brain. It makes people think less and rely on basic emotions, and especially stimulates anger, frustration, and sometimes violence. The Asgardians made it to use in war, to make soldiers fight without moral qualms."

"That's horrible!" Simmons said. "Being able to think about the consequences of actions is what separates us from animals!"

"I agree." Coulson said. "And so did most of the Asgardians. That's why they never used it after testing."

"But why did we, um… feel so strongly about each other?" Fitz asked.

Coulson smiled. "While they focused on releasing anger and violence, the way the mirror affected the brain also required another emotion to be released, for balance. Before people really thought, they had anger, and they almost always used violence. They also had love."

"So it makes love?" Skye asked. "I thought that couldn't be done."

"That's right." Simmons said. "It can't, because love isn't scientific."

"What I meant is that the mirror stimulates passion, which _can_ be controlled."

"Passion and anger are often closely related." Fitz said. "I can see that being a package deal. But why did the mirror end up here?"

"That's what my contacts didn't know. After it was voted that the mirror not be used, it disappeared, stolen by some Asgardian who wanted to use it. Somehow it found its way to Earth. My question is how you managed to find it. Did you just stumble upon it?" Coulson asked.

Simmons could hear in his voice that he knew they weren't as innocent as they seemed. "We didn't know what the artifact was." She said. "Fitz showed me an article online about people acting strangely after visiting a place in New York, and we decided to see if it was anything alien."

"We followed protocol." Fitz said. "Maybe we kept that secret, but we brought the drones to scan everything, and before we touched anything we put on gloves." He bit the inside of his lip. "I suppose I should say we tried to follow protocol."

"I picked up the mirror and noticed that a piece was missing. It was broken, and I thought I broke it, so I started panicking and tried to hand it to Fitz to fix."

"That was when we both touched the mirror and it started to affect us."

"We knew right away that we'd found what we had been looking for, but we couldn't think straight. I could feel my brain slowing down." Simmons said.

"It felt wrong." Fitz finished. "But we felt pleasure because of the other emotions we felt, so… yeah."

Coulson nodded. "Alright."

"How did you know where to find us?" he asked.

"I told you to check in, remember?" Coulson said. "When you didn't I started to worry, so I traced your phones."

"Our phones!" Simmons cried. "Why didn't we think to use them right after we found the mirror?"

"Simmons, I couldn't finish a sentence a second after we touched it. I doubt we could've called Coulson, even if we remembered we had phones."

"How'd it feel to be dumbed down?" Skye asked them.

Fitz looked at Simmons and thought for a minute. "It actually wasn't that bad."

"No." Simmons said softly. "It really wasn't."

Then Simmons laughed. "Fitz punched the first man who separated us."

"What's so funny about that?" he asked.

"Coulson, I need to see the tape." Skye said.

Immediately the scientists froze. "What tape?"

Coulson gave Skye a look. "A security tape from the museum. I had them send me the copy from today."

"Did you watch it?" Simmons asked.

Coulson looked down. "Yes."

"Are we unemployed now?" Fitz asked.

"Of course not." Coulson said. "It wasn't your fault." He looked at Fitz. "What kind of question is that?"

Fitz shrugged. "It's been a strange day."

"But seriously, can I watch the tape?" Skye asked.

"I'll leave that up to Fitz-Simmons."

They looked at each other and smiled. "Nope!"

"Come on, guys, why not?" she asked as Coulson chuckled behind her.

"Because it's private." Simmons said.

Skye frowned and stood up. "Fine. I'll see you tomorrow." She walked out of the room quickly.

"She's going to hack into the system and watch it, isn't she?" Simmons asked flatly.

"Yes." Fitz said, and Coulson did too.

Coulson left them alone after making sure they were alright a few minutes later.

"That was some day." Fitz said.

"Sure was."

He looked at her. "I'm sorry for what happened."

"It wasn't your fault. If anything it was mine. I'm the one who picked up the mirror."

He smiled and met her gaze, his eyes full of sincerity. "It may have been forced, but I enjoyed that."

She blushed a bit. "Honestly? Me too."

He grinned wider. "I'm glad it's not just me. I thought maybe you'd think I was crazy."

"For being honest? You know me better than that Fitz."

"Yeah." He said. "I do."

He stood up and walked over to her on an impulse, and moved one hand so it was under her face. He knew this was a crucial moment between them, because of what they had done earlier that day. And he felt confident in what was about to happen. He tilted her chin up and brought his face down to hers, their eyes inches apart. Then he kissed her, softly and only for a second. And she returned the favor.

He went back to his seat and smiled. "That was just because. No mirror necessary."

She reached for his hand and gave it a light squeeze. "No mirror necessary." She agreed.


End file.
